In our case the log actually was carried by Marius and Esperit; but the tottering old man clasped its forward end with his thin feeble hands, and its hinder end was clasped by the plump feeble hands of the tottering child. Thus, the four together, they brought it in through the doorway and carried it thrice around the room, circling the supper-table and the lighted candles; and then, reverently, it was laid before the fire-place—that still sometimes is called in Provençal the lar.
There was a pause, while the old man filled out a cup of vin cue; and a solemn hush fell upon the company, and all heads were bowed, as he poured three libations upon the log, saying with the last: "In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost!"—and then cried with all the vigor that he could infuse into his thin and quavering old voice:
Cacho-fiò,
Bouto-fiò!
Alègre! Alègre!
Diéu nous alègre!
Calèndo vèn! Tout bèn vèn!
Diéu nous fague la gràci de vèire l'an que vèn,
E se noun sian pas mai, que noun fuguen pas mens!
Yule-log,
Catch fire!
Joy! Joy!
God gives us joy!
Christmas comes! All good comes!
May God give us grace to see the coming year,
And if we are not more, may we not be less!
As he ended his invocation he crossed himself, as did all the rest; and a great glad shout was raised of "Alègre! Alègre!" as Marius and Esperit—first casting some fagots of vine-branches on the bed of glowing coals—placed the yule-log upon the fire. Instantly the vines blazed up, flooding the room with brightness; and as the yule-log glowed and reddened everybody cried
Cacho-fiò,
Bouto-fiò!
Alègre! Alègre!
again and again—as though the whole of them together of a sudden had gone merry-mad!
In the midst of this triumphant rejoicing the bowl from which the libation had been poured was filled afresh with vin cue and was passed from hand to hand and lip to lip—beginning with the little Tounin, and so upward in order of seniority until it came last of all to the old man—and from it each drank to the new fire of the new year.